A "Palestinian Spring": A Renewed Fatah Bid to Remove Fayyad by Khaled Abu Toameh
"Palestinians noticed that in many cities, Fatah activists were organizing and leading the anti-Fayyad protests. Palestinian Security forces had been instructed not to prevent the protesters from burning posters and effigies of Fayyad."
A cynical view of Middle East democracy -- One person, one vote, one time?
The latest rampages following the "Innocence of Muslims" film do not augur well for the future of MidEast democracy
"Am I being overly cynical? Tell me after we see what action Libya takes against the murderers of the US ambassador and after we see how hard President Mursi cracks down on the demonstrators, feverish over a 13 minute film trailer. And finally, tell me when we see if either regime (or any of the others) allows any significant political opponents to arise who could defeat them in future democratic elections – if they ever take place.
How long did democracy last in Gaza before political opponents were tortured and thrown off buildings? How many opposition parties are there in the West Bank – outside prison, that is? Yup - one person, one vote, and only one time."
Myths and realities: Israel and the refugee problem
"The Palestinians' so-called leaders are busy selling their "narrative", but let's call a spade a spade – their narrative is nothing but propaganda, full of half-truths, omissions and outright lies and it's built on the tears of the crimes the Arab world committed against 850,000 Arab-Jewish (*) refugees and continues to commit against the 5,000,000, downtrodden Palestinian pawns."
(* Jews from Arab countries would be better)
Irish Times: State did nothing to save Jews, says Shatter
THE GOVERNMENT in the 1940s did nothing to oppose the extermination of the Jews in Europe, Minister for Justice and Defence Alan Shatter said yesterday.
"He also warned that the international community today had to stand up to those such as President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran who not only denied the Holocaust but were actively seeking to destroy the state of Israel.
Opening a conference to mark the centenary of the birth of Raoul Wallenberg, the Swedish diplomat who saved more than 50,000 Hungarian Jews from the death camps, the Minister said there were many who did nothing in the face of the industrialised genocide and destruction of European Jewish civilisation."
UN Watch: Hillel Neuer: New UN human rights official is a hero to Holocaust deniers
"De Zayas is not a Holocaust denier. But he is a hero to them. His publications and lectures are promoted on websites such as “Committee for Open Debate on the Holocaust.” It’s easy to see why.MEMRI Cartoon in PA daily shows Israel as a knife slitting Jerusalem’s throat?
One of his key themes is that hardly any Germans knew what was happening to their Jewish compatriots."
Israel urges world boycott of Ahmadinejad speech to the UN
UN envoy Ron Prosor: ‘Iran’s nuclear program is like an express train, and the international community’s response is like a local train that stops at every stop’
U.N. shipment of high-tech to North Korea, Iran unjustified and unfathomable, say investigators
"The high-tech shipments to two of the world’s most dangerous governments were initially made public last April by Fox News, which reported that WIPO’s method for carrying out the transaction in North Korea seemed designed to bypass safeguards set up in 2008 after a similar scandal involving another U.N. agency, the United Nations Development Program."
Dramatic moustache causes man to flee hometown
The iconoclastic facial hair caused him to abandon his hometown of Bara in Khyber Agency after the militants declared it ‘un-Islamic’.
“It was the summer of 2008, when members of the LeI arrested me and took me to a religious scholar who declared the moustache un-Islamic and ordered it to be shaved,” he said.
The pride of Afridi’s life was shaved at gunpoint. Refusing to be cowed by the militants’ threats, however, he decided to move to Peshawar so that his moustache may thrive unfettered."
IDF Blog A Rosh Hashana Greeting from the IDF Chief of Staff
A great Jewish year for tourism: Record 3.5 million visit Israel
Israel receives NIS 18 billion ($4.5 billion) in tourism revenue over past 12 months • Tourism Ministry approves construction grants for 18 new hotels, half of them in Jerusalem.
Israel Daily Picture: Beneath the Old City of Jerusalem Lies a Huge Cave. Does It Date Back To King Solomon or King Zedekiah?
Also, check out Zach Novetsky in Tablet: Beware of Even Numbers - The film ‘Innocence of Muslims’ and the dangerous failing of the media